gravamen

The story

1. Late Latin · derived fromgravāmina
2. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*gʷreh₂-“heavy”
3. Latin · derived fromgravāre
4. Medieval Latin · derived fromgravāmen“grievance”
5. Late Latin · learned borrowing fromgravāmen“physical inconvenience”
6. English todaygravamen

Learned borrowing from Late Latin gravāmen (“physical inconvenience”) and Medieval Latin gravāmen (“grievance”), from Latin gravāre + -men (suffix forming neuter nouns of the third declension). Gravāre is the present active infinitive of gravō (“to burden, weigh down; to oppress”), from gravis (“heavy; grave, serious; hard, troublesome”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *gʷreh₂- (“heavy”)) + -ō (suffix forming regular first-conjugation verbs). The plural form gravamina is derived from Late Latin gravāmina.

Words from the same roots